Nearly 5,000 public servants witnessed corruption in their agencies as the number of bureaucrats reporting cronyism, nepotism and other misconduct grew in a new survey.

The latest public service commission State of the Service report found 5 per cent or 4,900 surveyed government staff said they had seen corrupt behaviour, a rate that has risen steadily since a survey in 2013-14 that found 2.6 per cent had witnessed it in their workplaces.